"Atomicity scales further by digitizing trust explicitly, so obligations can be routed, netted, and settled incidentally instead of pretending every meaningful economic act must be immediate final settlement. It's a mutual credit system. It coordinates trust where it exists, not as a last resort."

hmm, yeah that does sound like hawala. so yes, trust and credit are the usual bandaids humans slap on settlement systems that are inefficient slow and expensive. congrats on reinventing the wheel.

if you ever care to take a look at where this all ended up with banks and gold, you will understand my deep rooted skepticism for this path.

there are 3 main variations of this theme. and this is the least outrageous to me, it's also not something that will find much adoption given centralized alternatives. (because it's fucking exhausting and lacks liquidity compared to the centralized alternatives) Hal's vision simply doesn't work, it's a straight path to monetary debasement; full-reserve banks are a pipe dream, a myth. Jal's vision is an abomination as far as i can tell, but could actually work for a change.